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05-05-2024

Combining anchoring with financial incentives to increase physical activity: a randomized controlled trial among college students

Authors: Chad Stecher, Ching-Hua Chen, James Codella, Sara Cloonan, James Hendler

Published in: Journal of Behavioral Medicine | Issue 5/2024

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to: (1) compare the relative efficacy of different combinations of three behavioral intervention strategies (i.e., personalized reminders, financial incentives, and anchoring) for establishing physical activity habits using an mHealth app and (2) to examine the effects of these different combined interventions on intrinsic motivation for physical activity and daily walking habit strength. A four-arm randomized controlled trial was conducted in a sample of college students (N = 161) who had a self-reported personal wellness goal of increasing their physical activity. Receiving cue-contingent financial incentives (i.e., incentives conditional on performing physical activity within ± one hour of a prespecified physical activity cue) combined with anchoring resulted in the highest daily step counts and greatest odds of temporally consistent walking during both the four-week intervention and the full eight-week study period. Cue-contingent financial incentives were also more successful at increasing physical activity and maintaining these effects post-intervention than traditional non-cue-contingent incentives. There were no differences in intrinsic motivation or habit strength between study groups at any time point. Financial incentives, particularly cue-contingent incentives, can be effectively used to support the anchoring intervention strategy for establishing physical activity habits. Moreover, mHealth apps are a feasible method for delivering the combined intervention technique of financial incentives with anchoring.
Appendix
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Footnotes
1
The anchoring intervention is a specific form of an Implementation Intention (Gollwitzer 1999; Gollwitzer and Sheeran 2006). Specifically, Implementation Intentions require participants to construct a “When/then” plan that identifies any type of contextual cue (i.e., an emotion, time of day, existing routine, visual cue, etc.) that will trigger the performance of the targeted behavior, e.g. “When I feel tired in the afternoon, then I will go for a walk.” Anchoring limits the type of contextual cue to just existing routines, so the previous example of an Implementation Intention would not be considered Anchoring. The following example illustrates how to use an existing routine for an anchoring intervention: “After finishing my coffee in the morning, then I will go for a walk”.
 
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Metadata
Title
Combining anchoring with financial incentives to increase physical activity: a randomized controlled trial among college students
Authors
Chad Stecher
Ching-Hua Chen
James Codella
Sara Cloonan
James Hendler
Publication date
05-05-2024
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Journal of Behavioral Medicine / Issue 5/2024
Print ISSN: 0160-7715
Electronic ISSN: 1573-3521
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-024-00492-4